Jennifer Scholtes

Top House appropriators called Tuesday for the Secret Service to immediately slap down disciplinary action and open its own investigation into allegations that two senior-level agents drove into a White House barricade while drunk earlier this month.

Democrats banded together Tuesday to block the Senate from considering a Homeland Security spending bill, leaving GOP leaders scrambling to find another path forward to challenge the president over immigration.

Miffed that President Barack Obama plans to announce his immigration actions while they are strapped in at 30,000 feet en route to their home districts, congressional Republicans say the timing shows that the president has no regard for their input.

A day after a New York man was indicted on charges of trying to provide support to the Islamic State, top federal officials expressed concern to Congress about the reach the terrorist group could have via the Internet to inspire Americans to carry out domestic attacks.

The Obama administration stressed Monday that child migrants entering the country illegally must go through deportation proceedings, but continued to avoid answering questions about how many of them actually show up and end up getting deported.

President Barack Obama ordered the creation of a high-level working group to respond to the recent surge in unaccompanied immigrant children, following congressional criticism that he has neglected to acknowledge the extra money and effort needed to handle the crisis.

On America’s southern border, officials have watched for the past few years as a trickle of children crossing the Rio Grande illegally without their parents has turned into a veritable flood. So many kids, in fact, that the issue has triggered a crisis, as Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson had to issue an emergency alert this month establishing a shelter at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas to house the thousands of youths entering each week.

Top law enforcement and intelligence officials fiercely defended the Obama administration’s sweeping surveillance programs on Capitol Hill Thursday, emphasizing their legality, their record of success in thwarting terrorist attacks and the many opportunities lawmakers have had over the years to alter the programs that some are now criticizing as too intrusive.

FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and Gen. Keith B. Alexander, director of the National Security Agency, stood up to both Republican and Democratic critics in separate hearings about the programs, whose broad monitoring of telephone calls and Internet use around the world was exposed last week by a former NSA contract employee, setting off a national debate about the delicate balance between security and privacy in the post-9/11 United States. Meanwhile, intelligence officials briefed senators on the programs.

Sen. Roger Wicker has been sent an envelope containing a substance that tested positive for ricin.

Several senators around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday confirmed to CQ Roll Call the existence of the contaminated letter. Shortly thereafter, several senators reported that the letter was intercepted in the screening process at the Senate Mail Handling Facility and it never made it to the Capitol itself.

One of the Senate’s strongest critics of Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, is changing his tune. Sen. James M. Inhofe, R-Okla., said Monday night that he would not necessarily oppose Rice if President Barack Obama nominates her as his next secretary of State.

Inhofe’s statement comes amid a perceived softening among Rice’s GOP critics, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who were angered by Rice’s descriptions of a fatal September attack on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi, Libya.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joe Lieberman today chided a freshman Republican on his panel for divulging details of an unpublished investigation into the Secret Service’s prostitution scandal.

In a memo to the full committee today, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) laid out several points that he said are detailed in a report written by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.

Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Joseph I. Lieberman on Friday chided a leading Republican on his panel for divulging details of an unpublished investigation into the Secret Service’s prostitution scandal this spring.

In a memo to the full committee Friday, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., laid out several points that he says are detailed in a report written by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.